U.S. OPEN

September 4, 1995

Boris Becker

BORIS BECKER: No.

BORIS BECKER: You know, the secret with a long career in general, in sports -- if you want to stick around very long and enjoy your sport, you got to somehow squeeze in a life after, off the tennis court. In my case, I found a woman and we started a family all that. And that has taken away a little bit from tennis for six months, sometimes up to a year, but it is very important for me, anyway, to do that in order to have a base, and then that allows me to continue playing tennis at the highest level. If I wouldn't have started that, let us say, two, three years ago, I don't think I would still be playing tennis, because tennis, it is not the most important thing in my life. It is my wife and my son.

BORIS BECKER: Yeah, the last two years. That is the secret about it. If you want to have a long career, you have to have both in my opinion.

BORIS BECKER: No, never. I mean, I basically knew why I was playing bad. But at that moment I didn't care so much because I spent more time trying to chase my wife; not the tennis ball.

BORIS BECKER: On a hard court, yes, I am.

BORIS BECKER: No, just keep doing. That is fine with me.

BORIS BECKER: The attention all the time is on me as well. There are periods when there is more on Andre or on Pete, or on Thomas Muster or on a couple of others who are playing well at the particular time, but I am in the top of tennis right now; almost ten years, almost more than that, so the attention is always there and the pressure is always there.

BORIS BECKER: Yeah.

BORIS BECKER: Well, he didn't want to play anymore at 40-Love, so I served underhand and I thought I won the game, but then Marc didn't react nor the umpire, so I had to serve all over again; of course, I made a doublefault.

BORIS BECKER: Yes. I mean, the doublefault.

BORIS BECKER: I prefer to talk about the tournament or the match in itself. But apart from that, I don't really talk about any other things. I am sorry.

BORIS BECKER: Surface is not always the serve. There are many different ways of serving on hard court. Depends on what score; the different serves on each score and I am producing that very well right now and that I am closing in at the net and I don't make many, you know, easy mistakes, many unforced errors; I am risking sometimes on the back, with my forehand, but that is, you know, the way I play. I happen to miss some, but that is what keeps the opponent always on his toes. But I am playing the right way. I am aggressive all the time. I don't have a same pattern all the time. And that is what giving the opponents trouble.

BORIS BECKER: Oh, absolutely. And I paid the price.

BORIS BECKER: Oh, by far.

BORIS BECKER: Well, practice, unfortunately. That is the secret. You have to go out there, play your hours in practice; go in the gym; go running; do really much more than on any other surface because every shot here basically hurts. You have to bend your knees. It goes into the hips. It goes -- your feet hurt after matches, so you really have to be in excellent physical shape.

BORIS BECKER: From all the four, it is the most unhealthy.

BORIS BECKER: Obviously. A slow hard court is suiting more the baseliners, or, you know, the people who counterpunch more. And the ones who always try to approach, try to serve and volley, they have to think a little bit more on that surface; how to play and even that doesn't help sometimes.

BORIS BECKER: Yes, there is no --

BORIS BECKER: I covered that issue already a week ago. I don't want to go back to that. I am working here with Mike DePalmer who has been already with me for over a year when he was working with

Nick Bollettieri and me together. And it seems to be doing, you know, doing fine, and -- but there is no definite decision yet what is going to be for the future.

BORIS BECKER: Unfortunately, there are no certain rules which you might apply to every Grand Slam. You have Grand Slams where the draw is just so tough for the top players and, you know, in a 128 draw I would say there are many, many good players not seeded and the chance of hitting with somebody good early is there. This year maybe the draws weren't as tough for the top players early on. Maybe the top players had been playing better early on - I don't really know why.

BORIS BECKER: It varies, as I explained before. I am not every time feeling that I am, you know, that tennis is very important to me or that I am, you know, giving it all I have got in the weeks before in preparation and so on, but I felt this year that, especially after having such a good tournament in Wimbledon, I felt like I needed a couple of weeks off, but then my mind was set for the U.S. Open. I came early to America. I played few hard court tournaments just to prepare, but my mind was always set on the Open which wasn't all the time in the past.

BORIS BECKER: I should think before I am thinking since 1990 I haven't been into the quarterfinal of the Open, so a few years, I was a bit unlucky in the round of 16. I had a tough one with Ivan Lendl a few years back, five-setter; then Magnus Larsson I had a tough match two years ago, so, you know, I came through -- unfortunately, if you have a very good and healthy approach towards the game, that doesn't necessarily mean right away that you have good results, but, you know, I was fortunate enough to have a decent draw and do the best out of it.

BORIS BECKER: You know, of course, there are always -- there is always room for improvement, but I am -- in the match, for example, today, first serve was very important because on breakpoints he kept serving huge and I couldn't really do much on the breakpoints so once I had the tiebreak and the break up, I sort of cruised more or less. I didn't give it all out, what I had. And, you know, so it depends always against who you play and especially with me, I don't always play my best, you know, it happens that when I am leading and I am a break up, I am sort of concentrating on my serve and don't want to spend too much more out there. You know too much, much more time. But overall, I didn't think I played bad. Whenever I felt like I needed to jump up a level, I was able to do that and I had good balls.

BORIS BECKER: For me it is -- there is still another match which is quarterfinal. I am too long in this game to overlook quarterfinal of the U.S. Open.

BORIS BECKER: To tell you the truth, you know, I don't really care whether they are good or not. I have to go out there on Wednesday -- on Thursday; I have to play great tennis to win and who is on the other side, I don't really care. I know what I have to do and so be it.